Amidst the Misery

Chapter 3: Batter One

(Lisa) 4:56 pm
Hi Jennie, it was good to see you again.

(Lisa) 4:57 pm
I hope you’ve had a good rest of week.

(Lisa) 4:57 pm
I know this is short notice, but are you free tomorrow afternoon? It’d be good to …

(Lisa) 4:58 pm
If I stop using the word good, do you think you’d be more free?

These are the four texts that await Jennie on Thursday evening, and has her grinning at her screen after locking up her studio and making her way upstairs to the loft.

The messages on her phone show incontrovertible proof that the previous Sunday at the Standard happened, and of the earnestness of Lisa’s desire to renew their friendship.

They hadn’t talked more after the lunch, Jennie leaving it in Lisa’s court to follow up, but also giving her some space to understandably have a change of heart. Room for second thoughts that she herself hadn’t had time to consider because of the flurry of typical post-opening activities.

Leaving on niceties and the open-ended ‘let’s stay in touch,’ Jennie was happy to let things steep longer. But while Lisa was never far from her mind, she hadn’t expected to hear from her again so soon. It’s still an adjustment that they are now a tap and a swipe within reach of one another as they inch closer towards the precipice of their newly renegotiated alliance.

She smiles at Lisa’s repeated word use and can’t resist mirroring it as she types out her availability.

(Jennie) 8:02 pm
I should be good for tomorrow.

It’s a tonal shift from last Sunday, but Jennie embraces the lightness of the texts as they chart this new territory. Maybe they can do this after all.

While waiting for the reply, she heats up her dinner and scrolls through her social media and news feeds. Several retweets, likes, and favourites later, the ding comes as she’s spooning out her chicken risotto.

(Lisa) 8:18 pm
That’s great! Grounders in Williamsburg at 3pm okay?

More than, Jennie thinks, biting her lip. Old Lisa was not usually one for exclamation points in texting, a general opponent of over-enthusiastic punctuation. She’s curious then what’s motivating the break from norm but gladly welcomes filling her social calendar with another Lisa-requested event.

Jennie hasn’t heard of Grounders but she isn’t opposed to discovering new places with Lisa, even if it’s oddly another café. It does make her wonder if there’s a handbook on Friendship & Frappuccino that Lisa is consulting for tips on how to stay gal pals with your ex, the caffeine edition.

She chuckles at the thought of Lisa sporting her tortoise-rimmed glasses as she thumbs through and tabs the more salient points in the chapter on Ladies & Lattes.

(Jennie) 8:20 pm
Sounds good.

—

Grounders is not a coffee shop. At all.

When she had read Grounders and Williamsburg in the same sentence, her mind automatically went to overpriced home brews and cheekily-named scones served by skinny jeans and overgrown facial hair while obscure bands play through vintage speakers. She had imagined a shop front with a vintage bicycle leaned against the flower-pot window sill, and inside, posters of vintage bicycles. Moustaches everywhere.

Jennie was expecting something akin to the dozen or so cafés she had passed along the way here, Handlebar, Hip-Stir. Even Cofvefe would have made more sense.

Instead, when she entered the building, Jennie was handed a baseball helmet and asked her shoe size. She was beyond confused.

A hipster place this was not.